Phillip Schofield‘s resignation from This Morning was a hot topic on Friday’s Gogglebox, with the stars not holding back in their reactions to the 61-year-old host’s decision to leave the ITV daily show after more than 20 years.
On Saturday, May 20, he announced his resignation from anchoring the ITV daytime show, citing a ‘fallout’ with Holly Willoughby, 42.
The duo were believed to be ‘barely communicating’ behind the scenes, and it was said that their relationship had ‘cooled,’ with Phil stepping down following a “very difficult last few days.”
Holly would go on to host the show alongside other members of the This Morning crew, albeit she took an early half-term break, allowing Alison Hammond, Craig Doyle, and Dermot O’Leary to fill in.
On Monday’s episode, Alison, 48, and Dermot, 50, were the first to discuss Phil’s departure, and the tape was later featured on Gogglebox.
Mary and Giles, a husband and couple team, described the scenario as’very rum’.
Mary began: ‘We don’t know what’s going on do we, behind the scenes.’
Giles replied: ‘It’s all very rum. It’s all very rum, Nutty.’
He continued: ‘Phil leaving the show is like a glitch in the Matrix, Mary.
‘No one knows what the glitch is or why it’s happened.’
Meanwhile, Pete and his younger sister Sophie had a more lighthearted reaction.
Imitating Alison and Dermot’s segment, he joked: ‘Right, now we’ve brushed that under the carpet, on to today’s show!
‘Anyway! Off now to Phil Vickery with a succulent sausage casserole!’
‘Now, we can’t start today’s programme without paying respect to the man who spent the previous two decades sitting on the This Morning sofa, Phillip Schofield,’ Alison remarked at the top of Monday’s edition.
‘So, as a show, everyone on and off screen at ITV, and This Morning, want to offer a massive thank you to Phil for all he’s done to make this programme such a success over the last 21 years,’ Dermot concluded.
‘Quite simply, we all know he’s one of the finest live television broadcasters this country has ever had,’ Alison said of him. And we, along with the rest of the team, wish him the best of luck in the future.’
Phil’s departure from the show came barely a week after he released a statement admitting to having a relationship with a much younger man who worked as a runner on This Morning.
Phil stated in a long statement to the Daily Mail that their connection was’more than a friendship’ and that it was ‘unwise but not unlawful’.
According to the statement he submitted to the publication, the connection took place when Phil was still married to his wife of 30 years, Stephanie Lowe, the mother of his two kids, Ruby and Molly, and before he came out as homosexual.
He also admitted to lying about the connection to his supervisors and coworkers, which led to his 35-year agency dropping him.
Phil went on to add that he has’stepped aside’ from presenting the British Soap Awards, which are just a few days away, and that he has resigned from ITV with ‘immediate effect’.
Phillip Schofield’s statement in full:
The statement in full reads: ‘I am making this statement via the Daily Mail to whom I have already apologised personally for misleading, through my lawyer who I also misled, about a story which they wanted to write about me a few days ago.
‘The first thing I want to say is: I am deeply sorry for having lied to them, and to many others about a relationship that I had with someone working on This Morning. I did have a consensual on-off relationship with a younger male colleague at This Morning.
‘Contrary to speculation, whilst I met the man when he was a teenager and was asked to help him to get into television, it was only after he started to work on the show that it became more than just a friendship. That relationship was unwise, but not illegal. It is now over.
‘When I chose to come out I did so entirely for my own wellbeing. Nobody “forced” me out. Neither I nor anyone else, to my knowledge, has ever issued an injunction, super or otherwise, about my relationship with this colleague, he was never moved on or sacked by or because of me.’
He continues: ‘In an effort to protect my ex-colleague I haven’t been truthful about the relationship. But my recent, unrelated, departure from This Morning fuelled speculation and raised questions which have been impacting him, so for his sake it is important for me to be honest now.
‘I am painfully conscious that I have lied to my employers at ITV, to my colleagues and friends, to my agents, to the media and therefore the public and most importantly of all to my family. I am so very, very sorry, as I am for having been unfaithful to my wife.’
‘I have therefore decided to step down from the British Soap Awards, my last public commitment, and am resigning from ITV with immediate effect expressing my immense gratitude to them for all the amazing opportunities that they have given me,’ Phil said.
‘I will reflect on my very bad judgement in both participating in the relationship and then lying about it.
‘To protect his privacy, I am not naming this individual and my deepest wish is that both he and his family can now move on with their lives free from further intrusion, and that this statement will enable them to do so. I ask the media now to respect their privacy. They have done nothing wrong, and I ask that their privacy should be respected.’
This Morning airs weekdays from 10am on ITV1.
Source My Celebrity Life.